Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 29 January 2013 13:48

I’ve made some bonehead moves in my life. Like this past Satur­day, when I drove to Newton to meet my sister and her family and to drop off some printed materials for Bruce Behymer, our Buyer’s Edge sales representative in Harvey County.

I parked the truck, met Bruce in the parking lot of a restaurant and gave him the goods. Then I went in to meet Janet and Orvin and the boys. Everything was great until I went back out to drive back to Hillsboro.

I couldn’t find the truck keys in my pocket because the keys were inside the locked truck. And they weren’t in the ignition, they were lying in plain sight on the seat.

I believe this type of thing happens to other people all of the time. Just not to the same people all of the...

Read more: Bonehead moves still surface

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 22 January 2013 14:21

Persever­ance and grit were two words that came to my mind after watching the our boys’ and girls’ efforts in the Trojan Classic tournament Saturday in Brown Gymna­sium.

Both teams could have folded up their tents and went home but they didn’t. It was team basketball in the grandest sense of the word.

If you weren’t there, you missed some of the best entertainment available.

More inspiring was the fact that our girls knocked off two undefeated teams on their way to their first-ever Trojan Classic championship in the nine years since it started.

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Make plans now to attend the Hillsboro High School all-school reunion Saturday, May 25, at the Hillsboro MB Church.

The committee is having its first meeting of the year this...

Read more: Teams put on a show Saturday

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 15 January 2013 14:19

Lu Janzen, retiring chief executive officer of Parkside Homes in Hills­boro, has had a stellar career since 1970—doing what she was “called to do.”

With her leadership and vision the congregate apartments were built and the park homes followed. Our family experienced all of this firsthand with my mom, who first lived in the apartments that offered assisted living, and then moved to Park Home #4 when she needed more care.

Culture change was the biggest event to happen under Lu’s direction. This meant that residents could choose when they wanted to get up in the morning and eat, when and what they wanted instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.

I witnessed Lu as a tireless leader in caring for our loved one and wish to thank...

Read more: Lu Janzen served our seniors

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 08 January 2013 15:36

Not that anyone cares that much, or is even interested, but this week’s column represents the 750th consecutve time Partly Nonsense has appeared in the Free Press.

How do I even come up with something to write each week? I really have no idea. Here goes anyway.

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When we were a tabloid-size newspaper, which was for the first eight years or so, the number of words it took to fill my space were much fewer. When we went to the broadsheet size, it took more nonsense to fill it each time.

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Some people will do anything for money, which leads me to the next thought. At some point I had thought that maybe after I hit the 1,000-column mark I might try to put some of the material into book form and try to sell it to raise money for a...

Read more: Column streak hits 750 weeks